To wonder how public services will looks like in 5-10 years time?

[Dancingwithcrutches]

Just musing really. The public sector has been bearing the brunt of the cuts for years now without any signs of let up. Teachers are leaving, ditto healthcare staff and whatever remains of the police force may be facing compulsory severence in the future.

But the thing is the public need these services, so I wonder what form will it take a few years down the line. Will schools have corporate sponsors in return of advertising? Privatisation is already happening in the NHS, I expect that free healthcare at the point of use will not exist within a decade.

Am exhausted but can't sleep so apologies if I'm not making sense .

George Osborne's deficit reduction plan will reduce public spending as a proportion of the economy to roughly the level it was in the 2000-01 financial year. Its a little less than I would spend but its not as if the Government isn't going to fund anything.

Adult Social care will be taking up 50% of council budgets within 10 years

Geoge Osborne does not care because he has no comprehension of the fact that vulnerable people exist and will not all die on cue to meet his deficit reduction ideology.

Cut services
but then hand shit loads of cash to the Chinese for over priced nuclear fuel
and cost the UK 20,000 jobs in the renewables energy industry in the last 6 months

Don't forget that this government has quietly dismantled the probation service already.

it is notoriously difficult to make accurate predictions, especially about the future
anything could happen
who knows!

the Victorians". I'm sure they thought that there would always be work houses
exactly
things which we think of now as natural, inevitable, 'just the way things are' may well be overturned
are we not constantly warned of impending doom which fails to materialise?

It's a really scary look into the future....

In my local area the LA has to make savings of £60m. Everything that can commissioned out has been, SEN transport has been cut, carers now are expected to spend no longer than 7.5 minutes per visit and there is no allowance at all for traffic hold ups. I could go on. and on.....

Meh. Times change and we cut our cloth according to our means. I wouldn't trust out LA with its own fucking dinner money, never mind the eye watering budgets they have come to expect. Many services would never improve even if their budgets were doubled - because they are badly run. It doesn't stop the clamoring for more and more cash.

And yes, pensions need reform.

I discovered a few months ago that it will probably be managed by class.

A snake got into the KITCHEN of my flat. I tried the RSPCA , the police. .....they didnt want to know. The police told me it wasnt their job.

Imagine my surprise when i discovered an article about the same kind of snake discovered in the GARDEN of a house in West Hampstead. The police attended this one.

Same kind of snake in both cases. Now if its not their job....fine. But if its only not their job when discovered on a social housing estate not fine.

We also had an attempted break in last Christmas and they didnt even want to file it as a crime.

It wont be the rich that suffer due to police cuts.

The rich will be better insulated from police cuts, along with all the other cuts. But the type of home you live in is not the reason why the police didn't collect the lost pet that turned up in your kitchen.

Which i dont have a problem with Polly.....as long as its the same across the board.

Mrs Devere i think its bloody heartless.

Kirsty Howard passed away today

I have an image in my head of a Capitol and everywhere else struggling. Hunger games style but without the killing lottery yet

Or maybe 1984, which is becoming more and mo re true with all the double speak.

Either way, not pretty for the masses.

Will schools have corporate sponsors in return of advertising?

This has already happened, after a fashion, in the form of the academy program, but no one seems to have noticed or seems to care. In 5 years time all schools will be academies (God help us). Maybe when all schools are sponsored my McDonalds or Starbucks people will give a damn, but it will be too late by then.

Younggirl
Times change and we cut our cloth according to our means.
But the cloth is being cut by somebody who is not looking at the wearer.

The costs of Adult Social Care are skyrocketing : but funding is being cut.
The costs of health care are rocketing : but the budget is being squeezed
THe resilience of the young is being destroyed : but funding is being cut

Shall I tell you what's happening with pensions where we are and in DH's branch of the public sector.

They've been self sufficient for decades and decades. The serving officers pay into their pension (16% btw, so much more than a lot of other pensions) but this money is used to pay for the pensions being drawn by those who are retired. The system has worked for years and years. You may argue that their pensions are 'better' or 'gold plated' but realistically, not only have they paid for them but they've earned them and haven't taken a penny from the public pot.

Only with the decision to change the rules, slash their worth and piss all over the system, nobody wants to buy into it, the system's collapsing and it will be an inefficient system propped up by the public purse because they've fiddled with something which worked.

It's a very good example of how certain headlines and certain spin on things (the very term gold plated, the unfair comparisons with completely disparate schemes and so on) has actually convinced people something needed changing when it didn't. Sadly, often from the attitude of 'well, what about meeeeeeeee, I want a better pension'. Great. Do something about that.

There are thousands of examples of this tomfoolery. Certain crime statistics reading a certain way if you want to use them for police bashing headlines but when you actually unpick the changes in the way crime is reported and recorded, it's actually the case that things are far better than they ever have been even with limited resources (I'm talking v specific scenarios here). And this unfair depiction is just lapped up and leads to cries of 'they've had it too good for too long and we won't stand for it anymore'. Well, they've had it quite bad really in a lot of ways and now it's worse than ever and you probably won't like the actual outcome of those ill thought out demands.

Side issue but...

some kind of stormtrooper force, constantly at vigilance to catch a member of the public marginally at fault for a bin misplacement misdemeanour or parking offence

Excuse me, some parking offences are fucking dangerous. Others "merely" cause massive inconvenience by bunging up the traffic. It's not just councils scrabbling round for something to fine innocent civilians for. Just check out the regular "parking in disabled bays" threads... if nobody stopped the buggers there'd be no such thing as parking spaces available for the disabled. Though I suppose one could gather a posse of volunteer vigilantes to police them

My grandma is in care. Social services can't allow her to return to her home because they don't have the resources available to allow her to stay in her own home. Only, there are no care home places available here so she's in a home for people requiring end of life or specialised dementia care. She is rotting away in that place. I'd challenge anybody to go there and not feel utter despair. We do what we can but life in that home on the days we can't get there is getting up, being spoon fed, sitting in a chair for 12 hours with no input apart from a few more spoon feeds and then being put into bed. All day every day. It costs 40k a year for her to sit in that grey fucking room, caked in her own urine and crying.

Meh eh?

Fucking MEH.

ShowofHands
Shall I tell you what's happening with pensions where we are and in DH's branch of the public sector.
They've been self sufficient for decades and decades.
I'm sorry but that is UTTERLY untrue.

The liabilities of the unfunded pension schemes have been significantly greater than the income since the early 1970s

I can find you a spreadsheet of the numbers if you like,
but please
UNFUNDED schemes are exactly that

16% of low ranking wages can never magically turn into 50% of final salary wages for longer than the employment lasted

You know exactly which service dh works for I take it? You have specific figures for it? Because I do. And I promise you it's true.

I didn't deny that there are problems elsewhere. However, I gave you an example of what happens where we are. Because people are determined to see it as universal (in the same way btw that they read something about how the met do things and then that becomes true of all forces) when in fact, different forces have had systems in place which have worked for a long time.

And no of course 16% can't turn into 50% but nobody here's getting anything like 50% but people do like to quote that as a figure.

Exactly Mrs Devere These decisions are being made with regard to class.

In 2010, Unfunded pension promises made to past and present UK public sector workers amounted to almost £1.2 trillion, according to consultants Towers Watson – equivalent to almost £47,000 for every household in Great Britain.